


Memory Lane.

by reidbyers



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidbyers/pseuds/reidbyers
Summary: Falling in love with the Devil was probably a bad idea in the first place, but if you weren’t supposed to then God wouldn’t have made him so tempting.





	Memory Lane.

Out of all the low points in your life, this one was up there fighting to be one of the worst.

You were curled up in the bathtub in your grandparents house, trying not to sob too loud as to alert any passers by. In fairness, it wasn’t all your fault. It wasn’t that time of the month and someone hadn’t died right before your eyes, just your relationship. Five months ago. Yet it still hurt like a fresh paper cut, the blood not yet oozing from the slit.

It was a mutual breakup, not that it made the whole thing any easier but at least he hadn’t kicked you out for sheer hatred. Maybe that would have been easier, it was easier to hate someone when they hated you back. You could swim in hate but love? You’d only drown if the feelings aren’t reciprocated.

That was what hurt the most, knowing that you still loved Matt and in turn he still loved you. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could switch off, and even worse was that you didn’t want to. You weren’t a match but that never stopped attachment kicking in. God damn it if you weren’t prepared to go down fighting to prove that you could still be happy together.

Things were doing okay without him, your new apartment was smaller but it made for an okay home. The purple neon streaking through the windows at night was missed but what was there to do? You’d catch yourself doing things that would only benefit Matt, making sure to leave everything where it was so he could find it with ease. But it was only for a shadow, a ghost, someone who once was there.

Things were doing okay until your youngest cousin asked where Matt was. That started off a chain reaction of the rest of your family parroting the same question. They all bloody loved him, who didn’t? It was okay until the few seconds of pride passed and instead the feeling of complete dread filled you from your toes to the top of your head.

"He’s so much nicer than all your old boyfriends, handsome too! And a lawyer, his mother must be so proud.”

You neglected to tell them that Matt hadn’t spoken to his mom in a long time. It wasn’t the sort of thing that he brought up a lot, you couldn’t blame him after your parents pestered him to know what his dad was doing. Well, not much. Rotting in the ground, as you do.

Despite that experience being less than pleasant, it wasn’t your family that had caused the crumbling of your relationship. If that had been the issue then it was easy to fix, stop taking Matt to family events. You would still have to go but they were your family, you had to put up with them, no easy way around that. He didn't, that wasn't in any contract you may have thought up when you got together.

Everyone adored him and it was easy to see why. He had one of those faces, the kind of face that felt like sunlight on your skin when you looked at him. It wasn't only a pretty thing, Matt had that in the bag but he was also charming beyond belief. You couldn't count the amount of time he'd wobbled around the garden with one of your young relatives perched on his shoulders; people also trusted him upon greeting, hence letting the blind guy carry your kid around.

It was a strange feeling wishing your boyfriend to hate your family, it was easier to deal with than the issue being that he hated himself.

Matt Murdock disliking himself? It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking information. The guy had issues up the wazoo, it didn’t affect the way in which or how much you loved him but he didn’t make it easy for you. He thought he didn’t deserve it, that he wasn’t allowed to have good things in his life because he tainted them. He was the metaphorical and literal blood on everything he held close but luckily you knew how to get stains out.

It was his self hatred in the end that put the final nail in the coffin. You were surviving while Matt went out at night and got his fists bloody but that was the point. You were surviving, not thriving. He couldn’t stand to be the reason that you were being held back. Whether that be because you spent hours at work worrying or the time you were at home was being used up tending to his wounds.

Matt had gotten plenty of bad injuries in his years but nothing hurt quite as much as the thought that he was a burden to your life. So, the only rational thing was to let you go.

You wanted to slap him, scream at him for being such a considerate asshole, claw at the walls if it meant him not dragging you out of the apartment. Anything, you were prepared to do anything to stay with him.

Because he didn’t do well on his own. The whole reason Matt did what he did on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen was because he loved so hard. He felt such strong connections to people he’d never met before because they were in his head. He heard every bedtime story, every gasp hidden in sheets, every rat scurrying through mould sleek pipes- he heard love and hate and sorrow and he sat alone up on rooftops with the decision to pick who he would save.

There were few people who could be so lonely and still feel so much love, not for himself but for others. Matt deserved every good thing the world could offer but he would refuse to take it every time.

All that lead you to the bathtub, small and round and the perfect spot for a cry. Five months later and it still hurt like yesterday, you supposed that’s what getting cut out of someone’s life will do to a person.

Between the pitiful sniffles you were letting out upon trying to stop yourself from crying, you noticed that your phone was buzzing in your pocket. Matt was already on your mind so he was the first conclusion you jumped to, that he’d had a change of heart and realised that he needed someone around. Someone to stop him and someone to look after him, and in turn someone who he could be his unfiltered self around.

Could he hear that you were crying? Probably not, a little too far away for that.

You didn’t know if you were happy about that or not.

Some message from a co-worker sat dead centre on the plain white background of your phone. It used to be Matt. He was sat outside in the garden and the sun was shining through his hair and pulling all the red tints out to the surface. He couldn’t smile without the corners of his eyes bunching up into creases but these were particularly deep because of that cheesy grin he wore.

He was always so lovely. Stupidly so, beautiful like the paintings. The kind of art you could stand in front of forever and exist, the world slowing down to keep the moment for as long as possible. You used to tease him about it, few people seemed to be able to stop themselves from commenting on his good looks. He’d always have that look about him, the cat who got the cream, smug bastard.

The name calling only made you miss him more. You missed his dumb smile and smile lines and messy hair. Shit like tucking his glasses in the pocket of his shirt before giving him a kiss on early mornings, dumb shit like that. It was impossible not to miss him and in that moment you wished he was the kind of person who was forgettable.

Before you knew what you were doing the folder of photos of you and Matt together had been pulled up and you were clicking on a random photo. It was from your best friend’s wedding, they’d had a chocolate fountain and you’d managed to snap a quick selfie of the two of you eating dipped strawberries.

* * *

 

“Hey, quick question- are you capable of eating like an adult?” You tried not to smile because Matt would be able to hear it but you failed. It was kind of tricky when your boyfriend was sat across from you chocolate on his collar somehow and the corner of his mouth. Yet still remaining to look as cute as can be.

Matt raised an eyebrow before raising his fingers to his mouth. He listened to the sharp intake of breath you took, the heat starting to radiate steady from your face indicating to him that yeah, this was a thing he’d have to keep in mind for later. He sucked the chocolate off two of his fingers and this time smirked at the groan he caught from you, barely audible from the back of your throat.

“God, I hate you.” You mumbled and he chuckled, a low rumble that only reaffirmed your hatred.

“That’s understandable.” He replied once pulling his damn fingers from his mouth. It was almost always unfair that he could sit there and be so pretty without trying. Most had to struggle with bad skin and poor posture but not Matt Murdock. If he was having a bad day then at least he had those lips to distract people from the darkness under his eyes—like the curve of a heart you’d remind him before tracing over his cupids bow.

You were a little surprised to see how fast Matt was devouring the strawberries, the chocolate being the issue not the fruit. He could be very particular about the stuff he ate since he could taste every little detail of its journey to his mouth. If he did eat chocolate then it was the expensive kid, rich and dark and reminded you of the low groans he made in bed.

This stuff can’t have been that expensive, it must have been bought in bulk to be melted down for the fountain. Twenty dollars for one bar really wasn’t that money conscious. Still, Matt was doing a perfect job at acting as though he liked it if he was acting in the first place.

“Smile, boy.” The nickname slipped out with ease, you didn’t catch it but Matt of course did, the corners of his lips tilting up into a smile. You fumbled with your phone for a few moments before getting the front facing camera up, then shuffling closer to Matt so he was in frame.

You faced the camera while he faced you, lips pursed around the edge of the strawberry and his eyes from behind his glasses unfocused but happy.

* * *

A weak hum escaped your lips as the memory played out in your head. It was happy, sad, yes but not as much as happy. You recalled how you both got banned from the chocolate fountain after you considered sticking your head underneath it because of some dumb joke Matt made. When it came to dancing you twirled around the room to some cheesy 90s love song, something about never wanting to let this love go.

You decided to skip over the memory of what happened that night when you got back to his apartment. Some things still hurt too much and knowing you could never feel his skin beneath your fingertips was one of them.

One scroll to the left landed you on a blurry picture you had screencapped from Snapchat. You didn’t actually use the app for socialising, only for the filters and more specifically, getting photos of Matt with the filters. This one in particular was the hearts around his head. You recalled having to straddle his waist in bed to get the angle perfect. It was redundant to say he was beautiful because he always was, always would be.

* * *

“Is it bad I’m kind of glad you can’t see this?” You didn’t mean it in the way it probably sounded, which was in a rude away. Matt however and his lie detector ears didn’t get offended and he instead continued to look up at you, or rather where he could feel you were. He was a little off, staring up at the ceiling a little to you left but it was good enough.

He rarely wore his glasses at home. The whole point of them in the first place was for his comfort and others but he didn’t care about how he looked around you and he could tell you didn’t either. If anything, you liked getting to see his eyes.

There was a game you played, if you could call it that. You were determined to work out the exact colour of Matt’s eyes, in some lights they looked more brown but in others the hints of green came out. They weren’t green enough to be hazel but to call them plain brown would be wrong. This game entailed a lot of staring into his eyes, he found other ways to entertain himself.

“Elaborate.” He said while adjusting to the weight of you on top of him. He could hear the birds outside and people blocks away ordering their coffees and drilling somewhere to the left of the building but it was easier to shut it all out with you around.

“Your ego doesn’t need anymore of a boost, if you could see how hot you are then you’d be out of here bagging up every lady who so much as glances at you.” For the most part you were joking, you didn’t actually believe Matt would do anything like that. The thought had come up once or twice before though.

You absentmindedly scrolled through the filters on the Snapchat app till you found the one you wanted and immediately the Matt on your screen had a crown of pink hearts around his head.

“Smile, pretty boy.” By now Matt was so used to hearing variations of this that it was like second nature to him. He would never see all the photos you had taken but it warmed him to think that there’d be a part of him with you always.

He did as told and smiled, his lips pulled taunted and his eyes fluttering closed for a second. His cheeks always looked so damn kissable, he was a grown man- no grown man should have cheeks like a newborn. As soon as you took the photo you leant down to land a kiss on said kissable cheeks, just to prove the theory.

“You must have so many bad photos.” Matt commented with a hint of exhaustion in his voice. Before replying you clambered as graceful as you could off of him and laid back down, tucking your head onto his chest.

“Matt, for someone who can’t really tell where a camera is, you’re photogenic as fuck. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled as you pressed a kiss to his chest, taking a quick screenshot of the photo you’d taken before throwing your phone to the side. Why look at a photo when you had the real thing right in front of you, begging to be kissed by existing?

* * *

“(Y/N)? Are you going to be in there much longer?” A voice from outside of the bathroom shook you back into reality. You were no longer tucked away against silk sheets and pressed up against rough skin, instead white, sterile looking porcelain. You didn’t know how long you’d been in there but it’d been long enough for people to start looking around.

“I’m okay, give me a second!” You yelled back in what you hoped sounded like the voice of someone who hadn’t just been crying. Getting out from the bath was the best idea but you couldn’t quite will yourself to do it, not yet.

You clicked out from the photo and scrolled through the folder before picking a random photo out.

Tears threatened to spill over once more so before you could think more about it you clicked out of the photo and then the folder. After pressing a few buttons the folder was gone for good. You climbed out of the bath with shaky precision as the thoughts of what you had done chased after you, only pausing to look in the mirror to wipe away any stray tears before heading for the door.

Maybe they were best left as were, memories in the back of your head.

Maybe it was the only way you’d ever be able to move on.

* * *

“People give you their babies often, Matty?” You teased with your arms crossed, leaning up against the doorway looking into Matt’s office. A client sat opposite him and her baby sat cradled in his arms, their little fists waving around in the air. 

“Not as often as you may think.” Matt shot back with a coy smirk. His glasses sat perched on the tip of his nose, the nose you loved to give quick kisses when he was being cute. He was looking down at the baby, his head tilting ever so slightly whenever they made a little gargle or sound of delight.

It was a nice sight, that was for sure. You’d never pictured Matt with kids, nor had you ever seen him with them apart from the little ones in your family. This was different though, striking something at your very core that both scared and excited you. This suited him, the whole baby in the arms thing.

Your eyes drifted down to his forearms, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up to his elbow to reveal the warm skin and dark hair. He looked at ease, as though holding an infant didn’t terrify him but you could assume that he did. His hands were gentle with few things, you being one of them but he couldn’t hurt this child even if he wanted to. It wasn’t in him.

God, you loved him.

While trying to be sneaky, you slowly pulled your phone out from your coat pocket and pulled up the camera app. It took a few seconds to steady your shaky hands but soon enough you had the perfect photo. Matt was looking down at the baby and the baby was looking up at him, everything in the world was good.

And in that moment, you were convinced things would feel this perfect forever.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me at sapphicpage on tumblr if you want more matt fics!


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